When Timilehin left his house for the market he never anticipated any trouble. He was a fresh 100 level university student who went to the popular Yaba market to pick up clothes which he would take to school.
The 20-year-old was full of hope and looking forward to life as a Jambite at the Lagos State University, but unbeknownst to him, fate would deal him a blow.
“On my way to the market to buy clothes that I would take to the university, I saw people running and I kept pushing. They were shouting ole, ole (thief). I was wondering what happened. Someone pointed at me that he is the one, he is the one. They pounced on me; started beating me up. I passed out and opened my eyes in a hospital with a fractured leg,” he said.
Timilehin is now a youth corper and one of the few survivors of an angry mob which was very fast in meting out judgement on the street without proof.
They say two wrongs do not make a right, but in the case of a suspected criminal this dictum is rarely applied, and all too often jungle justice has been allowed to prevail.
Instant karma
Jungle justice is a punishment meted out by individuals without any legal authority to a suspected criminal, whose life is often snuffed out by a stick and stone-wielding mob.
But should such treatment be given to a fellow human being in this era of civilization, and has it reduced the crime rate in the country? These are vital questions that need answers.
“I was driving by when I saw some people pummelling a young boy with stick and before I could get there, the boy was thrown into a gutter with blood coming out of his head and mouth. He was accused of witchcraft. I quickly took to my heels and drove away before I am held responsible for the beaten. Those boys had dispersed from the scene,” Emmanuel Udo John told NAIJ.com.
Gory tales
In 2012, the lives of four young aspiring University of Port Harcourt students were snatched away by a mob. Chidiaka, Ugonna, Tekana and Lloyd were falsely accused of stealing and were lynched to death in the community of Aluu in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital.
ALUU 4 Boys
READ ALSO: Suspected thief lynched in Festac Town
The horrific incident, filmed on several devices, triggered the ire of the public both nationally and internationally, especially as video footage also showed a policeman hitting the victims with the butt of his gun.
This sparked protests in the country and demands for the arrest of the policeman and his accomplices. Investigations identified the police officer, who was arrested alongside many other suspects.
While some were charged with murder before a magistrate court, others were prosecuted for neglecting to prevent a felony. However, four years down the line the families of the victims are yet to get justice.
Despite the Aluu 4 incident being widely condemned, another gruesome jungle justice video soon surfaced online. This time, it showed a 12-year-old boy being burnt alive for allegedly kidnapping another child.
The boy, whose name was said to be Samuel, was accused of kidnapping a school child for N50, and was beaten and burnt to death. The tragic scene instantly brought back memories of the Aluu 4 UNIPORT students.
Angry mob lynch suspected kidnapper
But just as this barbaric act continues to go unpunished, eyebrows have also been raised over the negligence of security operatives and the transparency of the nation’s judiciary.
“I entered the market and all I saw was a crowd gathered, and when I peeped I saw a roasted human and when I asked one of the guys there he said to me that a thief who stole fabric was punished,” Adamu Bala said.
The Katsina-based computer engineer told NAIJ.com that the man asked if he knows the deceased. “Are you looking for someone, or do you know the thief, I shook my head in disagreement,” he took a reverse and hurriedly left the scene for fear of lynching.
Investigations have shown how the police have failed to intervene in some cases of jungle justice, and have sometimes even supported the mob or taken a lead in lynchings.
The nation’s judiciary has also come in for criticism as President Muhammadu Buhari earlier in the year condemned judges and lawyers who aid those milking the country.
According to him, the nation’s judiciary has remained his major headache in his anti-corruption war. This is because the longer criminal cases last in Nigeria, the shabbier their prosecution.
Many believe that long adjournments in cases make it easier for corruption to undermine justice and President Buhari certainly seems to be of that opinion.
Nigeria’s legal system can be regarded as one of the slowest in the world, with court cases lingering for as long as 10 to 20 years and suspects routinely deprived of a speedy hearing of their cases.
Reported jungle justice in Nigeria
READ ALSO: Kidnapper set ablaze In Kaduna
In a statement by Femi Adesina, his special adviser on media and publicity, President Buhari said in Addis Ababa at a town hall meeting in February: “On the fight against corruption vis-à-vis the judiciary, Nigerians will be right to say that is my main headache for now.
“If you reflect on what I went through for 12 years, when I wanted to be the president, I attempted three times and on the fourth attempt, through God and the use of technology, it was possible for Nigerians to elect an APC candidate as president.
“In my first attempt in 2003, I ended up at the Supreme Court and for 13 months I was in court. The second attempt in 2007, I was in court close to 20 months and in 2011, my third attempt, I was also in court for nine months.
“All these cases went up to the Supreme Court until the fourth time in 2015, when God agreed that I would be president of Nigeria.”
Law enforcement agencies
For many years, the competence of the law enforcement agencies has been called into question. This is perhaps why some Nigerians have ceased to believe in the police system and its ability to uphold law and order.
Some have also come to the conviction that if the police cannot uphold law and order in society, then they will be their own police. This loss of confidence in the police has played a significant role in the increase in cases of jungle justice.
When a Nigerian police officer was at the thick of the action in the Aluu 4 case, and was seen at the scene supporting the actions of the mob, it is hardly surprising if more people started taking the law into their own hands.
Olabisi Alofe-Kolawole
However, Olabisi Kolawole, the Nigeria police force PRO, strongly condemned jungle justice.
She told NAIJ.com: “I can only say that from the Nigeria police side, the police will never support any act which is not supported by the laws of the federation.”
Nigerian constitution
Section 33 (1), of the Nigeria constitution states: “Every person has the right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save the execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.”
Furthermore, section 34 speaks on the right to dignity of a person: “No person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment…”
If the constitution which must be adhered to states that every citizen has a right to life, why has the justice system dragged on for so long and why has the prosecution of the suspected perpetrators of jungle justice been delayed for so long? Nigerians are asking these questions.
Reactions
“This is totally unacceptable; the guys who indulge in such acts are animals in human being clothings. I can’t imagine why people will murder their own.
“I want the government to rise up and pass a law to stop this act. It is barbaric and inhumane and also an insult on human rights,” Barrister Seyi Oye, a human right activist told NAIJ.com.
A notorious robber popularly known as Mopol had on Saturday, February 27, stolen a plasma television. He was about to leave Sura Odumakin Street in Agege, Lagos when he was caught at about 6am by a resident who raised the alarm, drawing an angry crowd to the scene.
A poll on how people perceived jungle justice in Nigeria
Policemen from the Elere division arrived just in time to rescue Mopol from an initial lynching attempt. However, as the operatives were taking Mopol away, he reportedly vowed to go after his assailants when he left police custody.
Mopol’s taunt was said to have provoked the mob, members of which snatched him from the police, stabbed him several times, tied him with a rope and dragged him to the junction where he was set ablaze.
Mopol’s story says a lot about how our judicial system is perceived in the country.
Jungle justice is largely supported by Nigerians due to the dysfunctional judicial system. Those who support it argue that it is a good substitute for the slow and meandering legal system.
But according to Tunde, a civil servant: “A place where there is no rule then there is no law, so for the fact there is law in this country, we must not embrace jungle justice.”
Speaking to NAIJ.com, Tunde added: “To stop this act of jungle justice, the public needs to be enlightened. I am one person that believes in our law enforcement agencies, although I know many don’t have confidence in the police.”
Tunde, a Nigerian condemned the act of Jungle Justice
Femi, a youth corps member serving in Lagos, believes the practice of jungle justice in Nigeria may never stop due to the deficiencies in our law enforcement agencies and judicial system.
He said: “In a country like Nigeria, jungle justice will be hard to stop because of the current setting in the country. Our law enforcement agencies need to wake up.”
For Patience, a student at the University of Port Harcourt, the inclusion of jungle justice in the nation’s constitution will create fear in anti-social elements and thereby reduce the high rate of crime in the country.
She recalls that the passage of a law that approved the killing of corrupt officials in China has reduced the rate of corruption drastically in that country. According to her, lawmakers should amend relevant aspects of the constitution that will give approval to jungle justice.
No one is guilty until guilt is established by a court of law, but should the rule be an eye for an eye, don’t you think everyone would be blind in the country?
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) is a government parastatal saddled with the responsibility to enlighten the masses on different issues that concerns the citizens.
Several effort to get a comment from the NOA proved abortive as at the time of filing this report remain.
“Oh well, we cannot do much on this issue, I lost a brother to a crowd lynching in Onitsha 14 years ago, we have handed the perpetrators over to God and moving on with our lives but I hope the government can do something urgent about it,” John Chuks said.
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